Lightning GT electric sports car

Not as good-looking as the Tesla Roadster (like an older Jaguar), nor as affordable (about 150k quid), nor even available outside of the UK until it sells well (maybe), but it charges in 10 minutes. Remember, these things provide full torque (553 lb-ft in this case) from the get-go.

10 + 10 Web operating systems reviewed

Remember the earlier g.ho.st post about having your desktop and its apps anywhere because you've based it in the Web? Well, there are apparently at least nineteen other similar systems that are having a go. We're waiting for Google to weigh in.

30 pieces of trivia about Star Wars

Lot of stuff I didn't know.

Evolutionary algorithms applied to circuit design

Applying natural selection principles toward a specific goal, the algorithm weeds out poorer performing circuit design programs, allows parts of code to swap, and even introduces mutations (1 to 0) to see how things turn out. Aside from initial parameters, the programmer is mostly out of the loop here when it comes to the final goal.

Boxing and brain damage

Damage was measured through some marker in the cerebrospinal fluid. Soccer's heading of balls seems okay. More details here about calls for tighter controls and bans.

Gamers hone hypercapitalist skills online

The future-, space-based RPG Eve Online is attracting business types wanting to test out ideas and methodologies in a very pure market.

Enouraging registered purebreds

California passed legislation requiring dog owners to spay or neuter their dogs, unless they are registered purebreds.

I think the esthetic breeder types have a lot to answer for. Their in-breeding and pursuit of breed standards that can only be described as Frankensteinish should not be encouraged with state legislation.

I did have a coworker once mention that dalmations have all kinds of medical problems for all their inbreeding.

A cuckoo clock recreating a moment from The Shining

Just a product concept from a designer.

Did Hitler unleash the Holocaust because a Jewish prostitute gave him syphilis?

He also ranted about some Jewish diabetes conspiracy as well.

Montessori education -- so what happens there?

It's been 100 years since the opening of the first school in Rome.

OurStory.com -- personal collaborative timeline on the Web

Here's that personal timeline thing on the Web that I mentioned before that everybody can contribute to. You can add it to MySpace or your blog if you care to.

Enertia: A house that heats and cools itself (short interview)

The components: thermal inertia of the resin in solid southern yellow pine walls, big south windows (nice!), space in the north wall (for convection), basement for geothermal regulation, vents for summer. Like a box in a box.
Link here to company's How It Works page.

DNA paternity test doing nothing to help here

Both deny being the father:

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

No more lines at a supermarket

You walk around with a personal scanner and you bag as you go. Until then, we have Whole Foods' solution -- one line feeding many registers, like a bank.

US states renamed for countries with similar GDP

Numbers at the site.

Internet suicide groups in Korea

Korea doesn't have any noble seppuku as in Japan, but suicide is indeed in the culture. I remember stories anecdotally, in the news, and in screen dramas about suicide because of bullying, entrance exams, scandal, and financial wipeouts.
The beautiful celebrities photographed still surprise me. Just get some medical help first.

Education and technological progress re income inequality

Not just having stuff, but managing the complexity to employ the stuff. Toffler, the Future Shock guy, pointed this out in a telecast lecture -- the education system, as presently structured, addresses an older mass production economy's labor needs. More attuned education would evidently help the less well off adapt to the technological complexity of today's work environment and close some of the gap.

Presentiment: feeling the future

A little overly enthusiastic, but an experiment where subjects sense an unpleasant photograph a few seconds before seeing it. Supposedly, the US military and then CIA were funding a program studying the phenomenon.

Expensive kitchen set not necessary

The Minimalist food columnist of NYT proposes the basics.

Ceiling height can affect how a person thinks, feels and acts

Abstract, free-form or detail-specific? Originally for retail marketing, but certainly for more general purposes as well.

Dangerous artificial butter flavor

Flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million as a result of lawsuits by people sick with popcorn workers lung over the past five years. One death from the disease has been confirmed.

Violence at youth party (humor)

Less than a minute-and-a-half. Some foul language. Testosterone and weapons equals ...

Market function of piracy

The free sample approach to actually help sales.

True mom confessions

The anonymity allows for some questioning of authenticity, but less so for the "me too" button, I figure.

Ironic deaths

There's also a link to 30 strange deaths at the bottom.

Computer, Name That Tune

I think it's a more sophisticated technology than the site I mailed out before. It analyzes energy intensity aka spectral peaks in a spectrogram to ID a song that's heard. Say what? Anyways,

while it sometimes can't find a match at all, it almost never falsely identifies a piece.

Wolfowitz too theoretical?

Neocon's cognitive lock and lack of imagination costing a lot of lives.

Super Plastic Both Attracts and Repels Water

The more obvious application would seem to be capturing water in dry regions.

The new technology "would provide a more than tenfold increase in water capture compared to the inefficient nets that are used currently."

However, they're also conceiving of microlevel biomedical application.

Russian cake art

Yeah, that's right. Like this:

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to treat mind

Receptor activation and even neurogenesis (stem cells) for perhaps more than depression, like Alzheimer's; more targetable than exercise and drugs.

Article for depression in particular: These people believe it affects blood flow for areas they're targeting. A lot of treatments for six weeks to get a good result and I think I remember seeing a documentary mentioning that occasional followups were necessary. Some possible side effects and very minimized seizure risk. Good compliance, though.

British history interactive timeline at BBC

Well, bubbles pop out and such. I can't remember who published this app, which can be personalized for events in your own life.

Honey could save diabetics from amputation

For diabetic ulcers since it "kills bacteria because it is acidic and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics."
I had heard a while ago that honey was too dense or something to allow microbial growth inside it.

Your child's art made into a pin

Handmade in sterling silver. Don't know if other types of drawings are accepted.

iCall and Yak4Ever free long distance

iCall is for free US/Canada, and Yak4Ever is free from access numbers in the US to some international. Low rates otherwise.

Impressions of Tanzania

Some short notes from Tyler Cowen's visit to Dar es Salaam. A long time ago, a native warned me of tribal gang activity, but I think I was inquiring more about residency.

10 totally stupid online business ideas that made someone rich

The SantaMail one doesn't sound that stupid.

Maybe Bush could've asked for a smaller war budget

Excerpts from Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale covering rather obscene waste of taxpayers' money by contractor KBR, subsidiary of Halliburton:

Adoption and turning points

How moments can perhaps change lives. The emotionally wrenching story mentioned at the bottom leads to a gated NYT page, but can also be found here.

Hear clear speech in a noisy environment

The device applies some frequency algorithm on multiple microphone feeds and filters out ambient.

Oral sex can cause cancer

HPV vaccination for men too, then.

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

Part 1


Part 2 -- Explains how only 10 are possible, rather than 84 or an infinity. This 10th seems to correlate with the Buddhist storehouse consciousness, or alayavijnana:

Why are most storytelling artists liberal?

Liberals are empathetic and that's a prerequisite for the fully drawn characters of good lit.

AI and singularity intro (longer Q&A)

Q&A with a retired prof re coming singularity. Best line:

Events beyond such an event are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm.

Produce hydrogen on demand from water, while driving

No hydrogen fuel stations necessary.

Update here -- slower cooling of the alloy results in 80% aluminum. The alloy is more stable in dry air and reacts more quickly with water. The reaction was first observed back in 1967.

Hello Kitty Hell

One man's photo record of his wife's obsession with Hello Kitty. At this point, the blog also receives snaps of products from others. For example,

Cheap, fast DNA replication

A $10, 20-minute polymerase chain reaction kit off two AA cells. Good news for the developing world re virus tests.

YouMail - personalize greetings on voicemail

Including no greeting and the option to deny the ability to leave a message if it's a number you don't like.

Promotions that worked too well

In turkeys, swimwear (posters of Heidi Klum, actually), sunscreen, credit cards.

World's subway maps at the same scale

e.g. Tokyo vs. LA.

Somebody's best Douglas Adams quotes

You know, the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Reverse position in stock upon a magazine cover story

From The Economist: "The most negatively portrayed companies managed to beat the market by an average of 12.4%..."

WiPeer -- connxn with another computer without router

Yeah, you and the other computer have wireless cards, but no immediately available router to connect to each other. Just use a free application.

Net worth and IQ not so related, esp. at higher ends

From the journal Intelligence:

It would appear that if your net worth is more than about $70k, it has nothing to do with your IQ. Conversely, if your IQ is above 120, there doesn’t necessarily seem to be much reason to hope for anything special. Yeah, you earn more with higher IQ, but that take doesn’t have to stay around.

Freezing eggs

Know a woman who wants children even later? Vitrification (diff use of word: fast-freezing to prevent damaging ice crystal formation) of eggs allowing high thaw survival rates and fertilization rates approaching those of fresh eggs. While the technology has come along, it’s still new.

Incorporate in the US if you want online US customers

Your small business is not based in the US, but you want online customers from the US? Bad PayPal stories are making some just incorporate in the US and go for other payment gateways.

Slow wave sleep machine

Magnetically inducing deeper, and presumably more restorative, sleep.

Cousin tree

Proper writing guidelines

Solecisms (?) and table of contents for proper writing guidelines for writers at The Economist.

g.ho.st: your desktop anywhere you go

Eventually, you can have your desktop anywhere you can get an internet connection, rather than only at home: An online OS/virtual computer named g.ho.st with 3GB of free storage.

E. Howard Hunt confessed about those behind JFK hit

I first heard of one-time CIA operatiave E. Howard Hunt in All the President’s Men, my education of Watergate. His son, St. John, one day in his early twenties, saw a flyer about the JFK assassination conspiracy with a photo of three tramps at Dealey Plaza. He was convinced that one of them was his dad in disguise.

Years later, as E. Howard Hunt was seemingly close to death, his estranged son pressed for details. The decades of denial relented to a flow chart and a tape. I’ve linked directly to page 7 of 8 where the revelation is; go to the third paragraph, beginning “E. Howard scribbled”.

VoIPStunt

300 free minutes per week long distance to some countries.

Davey and Son of Goliath

Do you remember that Christian claymation series for children with the kid and his dog, Davey and Goliath? Here's MadTV's take from their 1st season, I think: